


Wake Up Calls

by lanestreets



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Wakanda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 00:26:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15424968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanestreets/pseuds/lanestreets
Summary: Bucky Barnes wakes up in Wakanda, the first time, and the second, and the third and fourth and twenty-eighth and sixty-first...Shuri starts out as an ally, and becomes a friend, and then might as well be his kid sister.Bucky and Shuri's relationship told through a few wake-up calls.





	Wake Up Calls

**Author's Note:**

> so, we're gonna assume that civil war didn't end so fucking dumb, and the team is on it's way to mending things, and the accords are getting fixed, cause they were stupid, and bucky is recovering in wakanda while team cap and team iron man sort out their shit. 
> 
> a character has a nightmare, and another is injured, but neither are described in detail. 
> 
> onward, into the breach.

The very first time Bucky wakes up in Wakanda, there are several of the Dora Milaje lining the back walls of the lab, a video screen with Steve’s face on it, and a literal child standing in front of him, holding a notebook with exactly ten words written on the page it’s opened to. 

Bucky’s heart seizes in his chest, but he does not dare react. His eyes flicker from the warriors to Steve’s face, to the girl, back to Steve and back to the girl and her notebook. 

“What’s going on?” he asks cautiously, and the girl steps forward. 

“Sergeant Barnes, I am Princess Shuri of Wakanda, King T’Challa’s sister. We didn’t get a chance to meet before you decided to go under. I lead the Wakandan Design Group, and I am in charge of the team working on your rehabilitation. You’ve been asleep for about three weeks. While you were in stasis, I attempted a procedure that I believe severed the connection in your mind that allowed the trigger words to have such a control over you, but there is no way to know until we test it. It is your choice whether we test it or not,” she says, very seriously, “but know that it is  _ highly _ inadvisable to leave this unknown.” 

Bucky nods silently, and looks at the screen Steve’s face is on. “Why is he here?” Because he’s certain three weeks is not a long enough time to mend the rift between Steve and Tony Stark, and it is not enough time to fix the disaster that was the Sokovia Accords, so Steve most certainly has more important things to do. Rewriting the Accords, now without Ross’ interference, should be Steve’s top priority. It is more important than this.

“I didn’t know if you’d trust Shuri, cause you’ve never met her before, so I made the time. I also wanted to check in. See how you’re doing.”

Bucky nods once, and does not tell Steve how he’s doing, because how he is doing is bad. He is going very, very bad. 

He’s terrified, because he knows he has to let this girl test out what she’s done to him, and the thought of giving up so much control to this child, this stranger, this unknown variable, is petrifying.

At least with HYDRA, he was a blank slate or he knew what was expected of him. He knew what to expect from them. 

But he does not say this. 

To show fear is to show weakness, and to show weakness is to be torn apart. 

Bucky looks to the young princess, and takes a deep breath and steels himself and grits his teeth and nods once, jerkily. 

“Test what you did to me,” he says, and braces himself for the twisting, turning, screaming feeling in his mind. 

He clenches his hand into a fist, and stands in front of the princess and her guard and he does not show his fear. 

“ _ Longing _ ,” she says in perfect Russian, and he inhales sharply. “ _ Rusted, furnace, daybreak,” _ she says, and he thinks maybe she’s actually done it, maybe he’s really free. “ _ Seventeen, benign, nine,”  _ she says and Bucky’s whole body jerks once, and he trembles and shakes and thinks god, no, not again. “ _ Homecoming,” _ she says, and Bucky collapses to his knees and clutches at his hair. “ _ One, _ ” she says, and her voice wavers, and Bucky  _ screams. “Freight car, _ ” she says, and Bucky Barnes is no more. 

He watches from somewhere in the recesses of his own mind as the Soldier drags himself to his feet, levering himself up awkwardly with just the one arm. 

“Sergeant Barnes?” she asks, but he can hear it in her voice that she doesn’t believe that Bucky is really the one she’s speaking to. 

“ _ Ready to comply, _ ” the Soldier says, and the Princess makes a very distressed sound, and the Soldier looks around for the threat. The Princess activated the Soldier, so she must be its new handler, so it must protect her. 

The Captain on the screen says something that gets muffled through a poor connection, and the Soldier slams its fist through the screen. It does not need the distraction while trying to protect its handler. 

The Princess shrieks, and the Soldier whips around to look at her, checking for any injury before scanning for any threat. The women on the walls point spears towards the Soldier and the Princess, and the Soldier does not see anything but red and weapons and threat, threat, threat. 

It grabs the Princess by the arm and backs her into a corner, placing itself between the Princess and the Threats. 

The Threats shout at it, and point their spears at its chest and move closer, closer, closer, and the Soldier snarls, feral, animallike. 

The Princess shouts at it, and it shoves her further behind it. 

The Threats step forward again, and the Soldier settles into a defensive stance. 

The Princess shouts at it again, and smacks her hand against the back of its neck,  _ hard _ , and the Soldier drops to its knees, on instinct, because it has displeased its handler. 

In the back of the Soldier’s mind, Bucky begins to panic. Logically, he knows that Shuri is not going to hurt him. Steve trusts her, and well, Bucky might not trust her quite yet, but Steve’s trust tells him that she’s likely a good person, who really is trying to help. Steve tends to surround himself with people like that, the Howlies, his Avengers, Wilson. Based on all information he has, based on  _ Steve _ , Bucky knows that Shuri is not going to hurt him. She is not really his handler. She’s what he’d tentatively call a friend. An ally, at least. 

The Soldier though, sees handler, and a displeased handler at that, and Bucky cannot help the panic that claws up into his throat and lodges in his airway and makes it so that the Soldier will not breathe for them, and Bucky wants to scream, but the Soldier would not dare make a noise, so silent they stay as ShuriThePrincessTheHandler steps around him and kneels there. 

The Soldier does not flinch. That response was trained out of it long ago. It would not deter a handler anyway. 

The Princess reaches out too slowly, and puts her hands on the Soldier’s shoulders. Well, on its shoulder and the mangled remains of a metal limb that he was careless enough to lose. 

“Sergeant Barnes,” the Princess says, and the Soldier startles, even though it has not done that in decades. “Sergeant Barnes, I am so sorry. I thought what I did would work, I really did. I am so sorry I’ve done this to you. And I’m sorry that I have to do this, as well, but you need to go back into stasis, until I can figure out what I did wrong.”

The Soldier does not react, though in the back of its mind, Bucky all but wails in despair. The Soldier is not happy either, but it does not have the luxury of emotion.

It stands, slowly, because it’s still not sure this is what the Princess really wants, and crosses the room to the cryo chamber. 

The Soldier stands still while Bucky shivers in the back of his own mind. 

The chamber shuts and the Soldier and Bucky Barnes are no more. 

~*~

The second time Bucky wakes up in Wakanda, he is once again Bucky Barnes, and he is once again terrified. He stumbles out of the cryo chamber as soon as he’s fully defrosted, and looks around wildly. He’s met with the Dora Milaje’s spears, and Shuri bearing panther gauntlets, and Steve’s face on the repaired screen. 

“Who am I speaking with?” Shuri asks, her gauntlets levelled with his chest. 

Bucky stumbles back a few steps. He doesn’t really remember what happened last he was up, but he remembers that he… 

“Oh god, what’d I do? Did I hurt anyone?” he asks, desperately, and Shuri lowers her arms. 

“At ease,” she says, and the Dora Milaje lower their spears, hesitantly. “Good morning Sergeant Barnes. You’ve been asleep for a week and a half since you were last up. It’s nice to see you back to yourself. You didn’t hurt anyone, just gave us all a little surprise. I believe I’ve discovered what went wrong with the procedure last time, and I’ve corrected it. Are you willing to allow me to test this out again?” 

Bucky really, really wants to say no. 

He looks at Steve’s face, haggard, with bloodshot eyes and bags underneath them the size of suitcases, and what he says instead is, “If I try to hurt anyone, put me down.”

What Steve says is, “It won’t come to that.”

What the woman who looks to be in charge of the Dora Milaje says is, “I will.”

Shuri swaps her gauntlets for her notebook, and once again, she reads off the command words, slowly, watching his every reaction. 

He trembles, and he tremors, and he shakes, and Shuri says, “ _ Freight car, _ ” and nothing happens. 

Bucky waits. 

And nothing happens. 

And nothing happens. 

And  _ nothing _ happens. 

He opens his eyes from how he’d screwed them shut, and he experimentally opens and closes his fist, and he rolls his shoulder, and he looks up at the women surrounding him, and he looks at Steve on the screen, and he looks to Shuri’s notebook and reads the words from it himself. 

_ And nothing happens _ . 

The breath he lets out sounds a lot like a strangled laugh, and his entire body sags in relief. 

He holds up his hand in a gesture of surrender, so that the Dora Milaje don’t try to skewer him, and he steps very slowly forward, and he places his hand very gently on Shuri’s shoulder, and he pulls her into a hug that he really, really hopes conveys all of the thanks he cannot make himself say aloud.

She’s just given him  _ him _ back. 

There’s no way he could ever say how much that means to him. 

After a moment’s hesitation, she hugs him back, and very quietly says, “You’re welcome,” so that only he can hear. 

~*~

The third time Bucky wakes up in Wakanda, he is in the room that Queen Mother Ramonda has very graciously allowed him to stay in in the wing that she and her children live in. 

He wouldn’t trust him around his kids, if he had any, but Ramonda is the kind of woman you don’t say no to, so when she offers, and T’Challa backs his mother, Bucky does not say no. 

He wakes up in the room disoriented and not quite aware of where he is and in a cold sweat from the nightmare he’s just jolted out of. 

He wakes up and he can’t breathe and his heart is pounding in his chest, and very suddenly, there is Shuri, right in front of him. 

He has a brief moment of thinking he’s hallucinating, because  _ what? _ , and then he takes a painfully deep breath and tries to calm himself, and thinks that there’s no reason he should be hallucinating, and then he wonders what the hell the Princess of Wakanda is doing in his room at two in the goddamn morning. 

“Sergeant Barnes,” she says, a little breathless, like she’s run here. 

Bucky, without thinking, corrects her, “Bucky. Just call me Bucky,” even though he can barely get enough air into his lungs to make the words come out. 

She nods once. “Bucky. What happened? Are you alright? I got an alert that your heart rate spiked and I was worried there were unforeseen consequences of the procedure or of testing the trigger words yesterday…” she trails off, and takes a look at the state of him and the state of his bed, and she presses her lips into a thin line for a moment. “Was it a nightmare?” she asks.

Bucky likes that she’s not beating around the bush. Straight to the point. 

He has a fleeting thought that she reminds him of someone he once knew, but it’s gone before he can really grasp onto it. 

He hesitates, but in the end he nods. 

Shuri, without asking, climbs up onto the end of his bed, and sits cross-legged across from him, and start rambling about the specs of her newest invention. She tells him all about how it’ll be so helpful for so many people, and how she can’t wait to share it with Wakanda and the rest of the world, through T’Challa’s new Wakandan Outreach Centers, and then she starts talking about how excited she is that T’Challa’s allowed her to head up the Science and Technological exchange, and she bounces from topic to topic with barely a pause in her speech, and Bucky, before he even realizes, has completely forgotten what his nightmare was about in the first place. 

~*~

The fourth time Bucky wakes up in Wakanda, he is struck with the realization that Shuri reminds him of his sister. 

And then, he is struck with the realization that he had a sister and that he forgot her. 

And that is so painful that he sits there, and he tries to breathe evenly, and he cannot stop himself from crying.

~*~

The twenty-eighth time Bucky wakes up in Wakanda, he is jerking out of a really rather pleasant dreammemory to the bracelet Shuri had given him buzzing and buzzing and buzzing. 

The bracelet, she had called them Kimoyo Beads, buzzes incessantly until he wakes up, and continues to do so until he pinches the bead that’s glowing faintly between his wrist and his knee. The beads stop buzzing, and a little image of Shuri pops up in the open palm of his hand. 

The future is so goddamn weird. He loves it. 

“Bucky! Can you come down to the lab?”

He nods and tells her he’ll be down soon, and struggles into the first clothes he pulls out of the wardrobe and shoves his feet into a pair of sandals, which are not ideal for combat, a voice in the back of his head supplies, and he heads for the lab. 

He is more than a little surprised, when he gets to the lab, to see that Shuri is not alone with her inventions or her design team, as he’s become used to her being. 

Steve is leaning against one of her lab benches, smiling, and deep in conversation with her, while she shows off the upgrade she’d just given her gauntlets. 

Bucky, without thinking, crosses the room and seizes Steve by the front of the shirt and drags him into a kiss. 

He’s not quite sure why he does it, he thinks it has something to do with what he remembered last night, the memory of a much smaller Steve and the two of them in one bed and never never never being able to breathe a word of it. 

Steve pushes him away faster than Bucky can really process. 

“Buck, what are you… what?” he asks, a little breathless and a lot flustered. 

Bucky shakes his head, because he really doesn’t know. “I remember, before. We used to do that before. I think I want to do it again.”

Steve smiles and it’s so soft and sweet, Bucky thinks it’ll rot his teeth. “We did. But why don’t we hold off on that, okay? I mean, we’re both very different people, now, than we used to be, and if you’re still figuring things out about yourself, that should come first. And we’ll figure out how I fit into that picture as you go, yeah?” 

Bucky nods, because he likes that idea. 

Shuri, who had turned her attention to something on her lab bench, makes a fake-disgusted noise in the back of her throat. 

“Get a room, you two. I swear, you white boys have no sense of decency,” she gripes, and Bucky reaches over and tries to ruffle her hair. She ducks out of his way, grinning triumphantly. “Getting slow there, old man,” she teases. 

“Oh, that’s how it is?” Bucky says, mock-offended. 

“That’s how it is. Keep up, geezer,” she says, and then she dances just out of his reach, and sticks out her tongue and then turns and runs away. 

Bucky thumps his forehead against Steve’s chest and groans dramatically. 

~*~

The fifty-sixth time Bucky wakes up in Wakanda, it is to Shuri smacking him in the face with a pillow. 

“Bucky! Get up! Get up, get up, get up!” she says, hitting him again, and again until he swats the pillow out of her hand and then slowly levers himself up so he’s sitting. 

“I’m up, I’m up. The fuck do you want?” he grumbles, still half asleep. 

Shuri gasps, and puts a hand to her chest. “How dare you use that kind of language with the princess of the country that has so graciously given you refuge?” she says, putting on a stuffy accent, and acting far more offended than he knows she really is. He raises an eyebrow in response, and pulls a face, and she frowns. “Fine, you’re no fun.” She moves quickly, and picks up another pillow and smacks him in the face again. “Get up, old man. I have something to show you in the lab.”

Bucky gets up, steals the pillow from her, and pitches it at the back of her head when she turns to step out into the hallway. 

She pretends to be annoyed with him. 

He dresses as efficiently as he can, and follows Shuri to the lab, and has to pick his jaw up off the floor when they get there. 

“Do you like it?” Shuri asks, holding open the case. 

Bucky trails his fingers over the prosthetic in front of him almost reverently. It’s molded to match his flesh and blood arm, much like the old one was, but this one is sleek matte black and gold, it isn’t too shiny silver, isn’t branded with HYDRA’s mark, isn’t being attached to him without his consent. 

“You made this for me?” he asks in disbelief. 

Shuri nods and beams. “It’s vibranium, so it’ll be far lighter than the old one. It’s evenly balanced with your biological arm, so it won’t put as much strain on your body, and if you want me to attach it for you, it won’t be fused to your body like the other one.” That part throws him for a loop, and it must show on his face, because she immediately begins to explain. “If you want this, I’d attach a port to your shoulder. That part would have to be fused to you, because of the way those animals mangled your shoulder, but that’s all. The arm itself is detachable, so you can remove it to sleep, or if you just need a break from it.”

Bucky grabs Shuri by the shoulder and yanks her into a hug. 

~*~

The sixty-first time Bucky wakes up in Wakanda, it is post-surgery, and he is finally, finally, finally free of every last bit of HYDRA. 

He wakes up and Steve and Shuri are both there, and Steve kisses him, and Shuri makes a face, and then she places a hand on the side of his face and smiles at him and nods once, and excuses herself. 

She returns later to show Bucky how to attach his arm, and show him the release catch, encoded to only work for her, him, and Steve. 

~*~

The ninety-ninth time Bucky wakes up in Wakanda, it is three in the morning, and it is to his Kimoyo Beads buzzing. He has a moment of panic, and reaches wildly for his prosthetic. He has it attached and is halfway out of bed before it occurs to him to just answer the call and see what’s going on. 

“Bucky!” Shuri cries as soon as the little hologram pops up. She is smiling. She is not in distress. Bucky’s gonna kill her. 

“Kid, it’s three in the fucking morning,” he groans. 

“Language, mister. I’m an impressionable child,” she snaps back. Bucky groans again. “Okay, I’m sorry, I forgot you’re in a different timezone, but I have urgent news.”

“Urgent news?” Bucky asks. 

“Yes. Very urgent news from the Wakandan Outreach Center,” Shuri says, seriously. There is not a hint of a smile in her voice as she continues, “I needed to tell you right away. I’m sorry Bucky. You’re no longer my favorite white person.”

“You woke me up at three in the morning to tell me that?” Bucky asks incredulously. 

Shuri cackles. “It is important news! I met Bruce Banner, and he’s very fun to work in a lab with, even if I am smarter than him.”

“When you get back here, you’re dead, you know that right?” Bucky says, running his metal hand over his face, and then pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“I tremble with terror,” Shuri deadpans. “I’m sorry for waking you up, and I’m sorry you’ve been demoted. Go back to sleep. See you soon!” 

~*~

The one-hundred and forty-second time Bucky wakes up in Wakanda, it is to a call on the cell phone that he hardly ever uses. 

It is Sam, telling him that Steve is in the hospital, in the wake of a battle with some stupid robots intent on wrecking Midtown. Doctors are removing rebar from between Steve’s ribs, because the idiot had gone and gotten himself fucking impaled, and Sam says the doctors are confident he’ll pull through, but Bucky’s heart still skips a beat nonetheless. 

He thanks Sam for letting him know, and he hangs up and he screams into a pillow. 

“What’d that pillow ever do to you?” he hears from the doorway, and he startles at the sudden noise. “I got an alert that your heart rate spiked. I wanted to be sure you were okay,” Shuri explains as she steps into the room. She perches on the end of the bed near his feet. 

“You spying on me, ya little creep?” Bucky says, but the teasing falls flat.

“What happened, Bucky?” she asks, and Bucky’s breath hitches. 

“Steve’s in the hospital. The stupid, self-sacrificing sack of shit had to go and play the hero and look what it got him!” Bucky exclaims, and he hurls the pillow at the wall like that’ll do something to relieve the anger and fear he has storming inside of him. It doesn’t, but that’s no surprise. 

Shuri reaches out and places a hand over one of his and he almost flinches at how gentle the touch is. “Steve will pull through this. I’m sure of it. He’s strong. But more importantly, he’s stubborn as all hell. And why would he go anywhere? Look what he has waiting for him. He’s going to be okay.”

Bucky chokes on his next breath, and lets it out as a sob, even though he really doesn’t want to. Shuri holds his hand and sits with him while he almost-cries and while he collects himself after and right up until he drifts off again. 

~*~

The one-hundred and forty-third time Bucky wakes up in Wakanda, there is a message for him, and it contains designs for a vibranium reinforced Captain America suit. 

The next time he sees Shuri, he hugs her, and presses a kiss to the top of her head, and accidentally calls her Becca, and neither of them mention it ever again. 

~*~

The one-hundred and ninety-seventh time Bucky wakes up in Wakanda, it is to Shuri flopping dramatically over his legs, stealing one of his pillows and screeching into it. 

Bucky startles awake and nearly sends Shuri toppling off the bed. 

“Kid, what the  _ fuck _ .” 

Shuri sits up and throws her hands into the air. “Your idiot boyfriend and my idiot brother are off trying to save the world again and they won’t let me help!” 

Bucky’s breath hitches for a moment, but he calms himself. Steve is sporting Shuri’s new everything-proof vibranium suit. He’s got a team at his back. He’s going to be fine. 

He’s still worried, but he knows that spiralling will help exactly no one. He should do something productive, instead of losing himself on a downward slope of negative thought. So he prods at Shuri’s side until she rolls off of his legs, and he attaches his prosthetic, and ducks into his closet to change. 

Shuri’s right where he left her when he comes back out, so he pokes at her again until she looks up at him, and he says, “I’ve never seen Star Wars before. You should show it to me.”

Shuri shrieks in indignation on his behalf and demands that they fix that, and she sets up a program to sift through all news coverage for reports of Avenger injury, and they set themselves up with snacks and blankets and they watch Star Wars until they get a message saying that Steve and T’Challa are both unharmed and almost home. 

Bucky wonders for a second when he started thinking of this as Steve’s home too, and then he thinks that maybe he’s just thinking of himself as Steve’s home, and then Shuri’s tugging him out of the room so they can be there when Steve and T’Challa land, and the thought falls to the back of Bucky’s mind. 

~*~

The two-hundred and fifty-eighth time Bucky wakes up in Wakanda, it is with the unfamiliar weight of a ring on a chain around his neck. 

~*~

The four-hundred and seventy-fifth time Bucky wakes up in Wakanda, it is his wedding day, and Shuri is smacking him awake with a pillow. 

He gets ready in a daze, and goes where Shuri points him, without much thought at all. 

When he gets to the altar, he waits for the man he loves with people who are like his family watching him, and with the girl who may as well be his sister at his back. 

~*~

The four-hundred and seventy-sixth time Bucky wakes up in Wakanda, he is James Buchanan Rogers, and there is a ring hanging from his neck, and a ring on his husband’s finger, and a tiny star in a circle etched on his metal ring finger that his sister put there for him, and he is happy. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at _[hohhawkeye](http://hohhawkeye.tumblr.com/)_


End file.
